The Dreams The Dead Dream

He smelled like rain. He walked past me and his scent reminded me of open windows and twilight. Of water dripping and umbrellas drying in the hallway. I didn't think I would have such a reaction to these, but it opened up a hunger inside me that made me want to swallow raindrops and reach for thunder. I want to embrace the lightning I saw when he passed me by.

These yearnings, they make me almost believe I am still alive --- that I have a heart that is yet to love and that there is a future yet to be lived. It almost convinces me that one day, I will open a door and realize what stood there was the reason why I had been living my life. One night, I might look up at the sky and just know, all of a sudden, that life is complete.

These are the things the dead dreams off: the flame that gives off warmth; the touch affirming the capacity to feel. The intensity of need --- for reality to bend and make one live again after having died and suffer existing all the same.

It's like a perpetual marathon. You run and run until you believe you are numb from exhaustion, covering the fact that you were already numb to start with. You cannot stop but pray your heart will, so you'll have an excuse to falter and rest. Sometimes I daydream I have total catatonia. Only to realize that it wasn't illusory after all.

Jumpstart my heart. Pass by me once more. Make me smell rain. Hold me and make me feel skin. I will eat summer and swallow oceans, hoping that someday, you could teach me to stop pretending and start living the life I lost.

Dead nevermore.